


Chthonic

by yizi



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Illustrated
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-30
Updated: 2014-03-30
Packaged: 2018-01-17 09:53:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1383130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yizi/pseuds/yizi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On a small, hostile moon—an artificial satellite hidden in the shadow of it’s depleted homeworld—a computer enthusiast seeks to remedy the estranged relationship between him and his grubhood chum by including him in his latest commission. The client is none other than the galaxy’s megacorp, Microzoea.</p>
<p>But things don’t always work out, and soon both trolls are fighting to patch up the holes gouged in their pasts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chthonic

 

 

You've _Dived_ before, no sweat. The act is as hard-wired into your id as a gamegrub is to a wall outlet inside your flat. You’ve done it with friends, you’ve done it alone, you’ve done it with your bestie’s hand tangled within your own. He was a fast learner—full of surprises—a real 12th perigee cracker, that one.

Unfortunately this isn’t your run-of-the-mill gamegrub session, wrigged-up in the back room of some hivemind arcade, while a syndicate of lifeguards stand by. Those are kiddy pools in comparison to this. What you’re diving here is the deep end of Oracle’s subterrain. Oracle—the company that started it all—stationed lightsweeps from the solar system, now virtually less than a keystroke away.

The Dive knifes downward, dragging with it streaks of chrome; red, blue, green, the bars of a test card on an archaic holo-V. Just when you adjust to their garish display, the signal changes. The world lurches forward, and a flashback hits you; like pavement to the teeth. You’re five again. There’s blood in your mouth, a buzz in your ears. A pack of Yellow Jacket trolls form a ring around you, their two-tone eyes and lusus-skin boots aimed towards you. You can’t remember what you did to deserve this “special treatment”; but knowing that there’s no back button, you give the closest shoe a golden spit shine, before it swings back and delivers the first blow of a thousand.

_Great. Let’s start the Dive off with a repressed memory. Even the simulated universe is against you._

All at once, the ground departs and the sky spirals away from you. Your assailants peer down through the hole after you. Their heads become smaller, blurrier, and soon indivisible from the pinhole of light you fell from. Layers of memory flit past you, like the storeys of an office complex. You claw furiously at them, trying to scrape some sense of grounding back toward you.

In a blink, they’re gone. The skyscrapers disappear. And you’re left to paw inanely at nothing. You let your arms drop to your sides and hang there, exhausted, waiting for the inevitable crash. When your back softly touches land, it’s with relief. Momentarily floored, you stare at the sky, take a long, even breath, and then calmly survey your surroundings.

Your neck cranes as you peer over your chest. You don’t know what you were expecting… maybe one of Karkat’s _lovely_ custom-made fap-icon maps? Nope, no nonsense here. The infrastructure is fairly monogamous. A wireless mesh flickers across your entire field of vision, deceptively simple. Probably dangerous. The gateway is just up ahead; a red spot dots the horizon—hazier than a hot ball of iron.

As you move to sit up, an invisible tug keeps you tethered to the ground. You try to decipher the source keeping you bound; only to discover that your mind is cognitively-strapped. You can barely execute a simple task.

You know why. You can feel “them” all around you, inside you, shifting your thoughts randomly about, like the surface pattern of a rubix cube. It’s Oracle’s servers. They’re inspecting you, analyzing each bit, spreading them out beneath their fingers.

_They're only algorithms,_ you remind yourself. _Ticks and drones will take your bones, but numbers will always serve you._ Oh, the irony of it. That adage used to be your candle; you held its light against your height, gauging it with that of the monster sidling the wall's veneer—dark and crocodilian—until its arrow of snout pointed the way.

So, where do you find someone who doesn’t want to be found. How do you search for someone who has the search warrant on _you_? You think back to the lessons from your early hacker days. _Keep it simple, stupid_.

_The way in is the way out._

You’re not sure how simple anything is anymore. What was once commonplace is now complicated.

Suddenly, the hands pinning you down ease their hold. Weightlessness teases the spots where their fingers once pressed. Damn. Guess you’re just not pretty enough.

Propping yourself up onto one elbow, you stagger to your feet. It seems like days ago, but only minutes have passed since you asked Equius and Kanaya to help you exact 'something truly foolish’ to which they almost too eagerly obliged.

Now, as you take a shaky step forward, you are realizing how truly foolish that something is.

 

~

 

There’s a dull pinch as the first cord is clamped into your lower spine, sending a slow, burning paralysis down each leg. A neck brace rests on your shoulders, awaiting its cable twin. While the whole ensemble is generally fitted for calibration and stress-testing purposes, it doesn’t stop you from feeling—well… used. You’re just a temp though. It’s not even half the shit Karkat put up with.

You had no say in your choice of suite; all server blocks were either indisposed or occupied. The only other vacancy available was Microzoea’s bioware nursery, a small laboratory reserved for apiary processors, wetware development, and certainly not immersive exploration. And yet, here you are. Most of the lab’s furnishings had to be cleared out before any of the Dive equipment could be brought in. Nothing would have fit otherwise. Only the computer station installed at the back wall stays where it is, along with everything else needed to connect to the network infrastructure —a recliner, a screen and a service terminal. While you sit and wait on the operation plateau, stripped down to your tighty whities, your coworkers bustle about, their apprehension slowly undressing.   

Kanaya circles the monitor, her sleeves fluttering, like some moth tied to a flame. She slides her fingers over the glass and the service terminal hums to life. After a few seconds the large panel behind Equius floods with light, casting a glow over the room. Microzoea’s logo fills out the screen, until it’s usurped by an identification prompt. Equius strikes his access card through the scanner and engages the console.

 

 

Your destination is Oracle. Microzoea will provide the handshake at the gate, but from there on in, the investigation depends solely on you. This mission doesn’t come without risks. In the event that you’re reduced to a grub-like vegetable, you wonder if you’ll qualify for mercy culling. Most likely they’d coppertop you first.

Equius returns and props a hand behind your head to correct your posture. His cool fingers cause the hairs at the back of your neck to lift.

“It’s no wonder that it’s taken so long to get you configured.” He adjusts the retention on the collar, “Your spine is in a perpetual state of anarchy.”

“Shame, the equipment doesn’t accommodate overgrown children.” Kanaya quietly quips, though loud enough for all to hear.

“My body is ready for the apocalypse,” You tilt your head back to tease. But Equius squeezes your horn and roughly forces your head back forward. The brace digs into your throat. “Keep still.”

Ouch. He could’ve at least given you a _heads up_.

Instead you’re resigned to stare at the floor, and study the scuzzy white treks where the floor was last mopped, noting how nothing is spared from the disparaging rays of practical lighting. Since the three of you set up camp, the room has grown cold and your breaths ghost in front of you—short-lived and brief.

Equius turns his attention to the materials strewn over the surgical tray.

“So.” The angle of your neck rouses undignified noises from your vocal folds. “When I reach the bottom—”

“Assuming there is a “bottom”, Mr. Captor?” Equius interrupts. He sifts through some cords, selects a thick black one and fits a hypodermic electrode into its socket.

Even with your head hung at this ridiculous angle, you can see him and he can see you. Eye-rolling is totally doable. “Yeah, assuming that, smartass.”

He returns with the cable in tow and kneels behind you. There’s a formidable stretch of silence and then a ‘snap’ as the jack locks cleanly into the collar’s bracket. Panic sparks inside of you. Everything is happening too fast.

It comes out as one word, “How will I know when I’m there? Which way should I go then? I mean, you’re going to guide me, right? I’m not gonna fall off the edge of cyberspace or something.”

You end with a titter.

Equius places both his hands on your shoulders and guides you into a reclining position. He says nothing, steps back and leaves to input commands into the service terminal. That’s okay; you didn’t expect sympathy. You’re not altogether sure you want any either.

Other sounds fill the void; Equius’s heavy taps at the terminal’s keypad, the soft purr of electricity, Kanaya as she pins a formation of leads across your chest. It’s a small, intimate space; sound travels quickly.

You watch the line on the heart monitor skip: 2-D stalactites on a shitty sidescroller. Eventually the sound of Equius’s footsteps snap you out of your reverie. He rolls out a chair and casually sits down next to you. For a moment, his expression is unreadable, absorbed elsewhere. Then he places a palm on your arm in what might be his best rendition of affection. “We only have so much influence from this side of the gate.” He continues to rub the spot at your arm ineffectually.

Somehow you figured as much, but can’t help but feel let down.

Just like that, he drops the bedside manner and gets down to business. A mask is lowered over your face, a sheet drawn up over your stomach. “Sollux,” his voice stalls as he searches for the correct words—or maybe it’s the nitrous oxide already decelerating your internal clock. “If you find her—” You wait for him to relay some cheesey prose that you’ll never be able to paraphrase, let alone remember. “—give her my regards.”

So much for romance. You nod.

Kanaya, who’s been oddly silent since the mention of your ‘search and rescue mission’, stands off to one side of the screen, her arms folded. She gives you a smile that’s mostly twitch. Prognosis of a much-needed smoke break.

“Right then.”

Equius leans in closer, “Break a leg, Mr. Captor.”

You take a deep breath, close your eyes—if only to escape his proximity—and the floor opens up from under you. Not even stars ease the momentum as you fall. What on Eden have you signed up for.

 

~

 

It's black—blacker than the proverbial smut lurking deep in the gutters of Karkat’s harlequin novels. Yes, you’ve read them, front to back. You have no regrets.

There’s a sign up ahead. Postless, as if it were branded into the sky. Four uncials, eight arrows, yours and his. They float there like reflectors along a runway before dissolving behind folds of grey.

You actually have no idea where you are anymore. Oracle’s database is something new, completely foreign and absolutely barren. Once again, you glance around uneasily, hoping to ascertain whether or not the hosts are hot on your heels. Hot or cold, they’ve done a damn good job of keeping intruders out... or locked in.

Given all of this nothingness and unconditional space, your mind is prone to construct. Land formations rise and fall from under your feet. A building, a parkade, your hive. You remember, four sweeps ago, the warmth of your coon, the familiar backstreets of your virtual hood where you sold your first “hack job”. You remember the close-knit sgrub forums where you found him, or rather he found you.

Funny. All this fear of being followed, and meanwhile, the past has managed to sneak up on you. You always thought that your history would appear seamless—like a long, monotonous road. But it’s more of an intersection, an inconstant feed of faces coming and going.

You step on a crack and there’s a twisting sensation inside your gut. These memories aren’t just yours.

He was here.

You pick a path, not knowing where it will lead, and pray.

 

~

 

_“—he's abnormal.”_

_The announcement passes from one tank to the next, like a bout of gossip, stirring the saline within._

_“Your favourite kind of normal,” you snort. The joke's reception is nothing short of bleak._

_“We have a popular phrase here,” Equius starts. “Don’t bring it to work.”_

_A moment of silence passes, then he pounds the table. You drop the pen you were toying with._

_“Are you listening to me? Aren’t you in the least bit chastened? A mutant!?”_

_Your face heats up. “Hey! Look! I—I didn't even know.”  Not until it was just him, his briefs and the gurney, you subconsciously add. Like a lobster awaiting anatomization. At that point, it was all too late to be unseen._

_Distrust piles at his brow. “So you're blameless now, is that it? Your pet is going to be this project's undoing!”_

_Karkat continues to snooze throughout this exchange. Drool gathers where his mouth meets the table. He’s been resting since surgery. The look on his face is adorable, and you’d like to keep it that way._

_“Leave it to me, ponyboy. I'll handle it,” you say._

_What happens next, you recall later with some uncertainty. Equius growls, strikes the needless things in his way aside and slams you up against the storage units. Tools clatter to the floor, your horns lock and the overhead lamp rocks back and forth, sweeping your shadows across the wall._

_…_

Broken teeth and naysays transgressed behind those doors. Now, here you are again, same room, same doors, racked for a word to go against his.

“Make your choice, Mr. Captor.”

The engineer cracks his knuckles. They snap like grub husks over a spit.

As of late, words have regressed. You’ve come to appreciate the language of fists.“Yeah. Whatever. Aye, aye. Permission granted. And all that noise.”

Without a second thought, Equius marches off to the server block. Should a temporary decommission grant your team enough time to pinpoint the anomaly, the system can resume as if it had never been hijacked in the first place. It unnerves you to think that someone else might have been crawling around inside Karkat’s head, turning that information against you and your team.

Loitering was a mistake. The vacant look on his face haunts you to this day. In the end, he was the project’s undoing after all.

 

 

~

 

Your bloodpresser leaps.

If you ever had anything—anything at all—here it is.

You run your hands through those chain-link 1s and 0s—those sweet all or nothings, the loopholes where you used to fit, before you slipped away. It's him down to a 'T'.

The longer you study his code, the less sense it makes. The breach grows—like a row of stitches steadily picked apart—the foundation of your friendship tears and an old-wound reopens between you and him.

You want to start over. You need that second chance—or however many it takes. A moment of truce, he owes you that much.

But before you can enact any such feat, a tremor rips the layers of traction out from under you, knocking you to your knees. Everything trips discordantly.

Syncing his connection with your own, you test the slack. Heat pulsates through the cord, summoning fiery licks of red and gold all the way up. Hot and bright as the stars themselves.

“Hang on,” you brace yourself. “I'm coming.”

You’ve barely made your move when the grapnel slithers out of your grip. It’s as if two hands had grabbed you from behind and pushed. You fall. Hell knows where.

 

~

 

“That's just the way it is,” they say.

You thought you could get comfortable. Accept this way _that just was._ One hot day, when the whine of your grubdrives swelled in your ears and your carpal tunnels had all but dried, you thought, _This is it. The moment your nerves have been waiting for. Any moment they’ll snap._

So you did what any poor, desperate soul would do: You struck a deal with the devil.

The next day, your fingers were no longer your own. Ecru, healthy—they pecked away at your keyboard. When you said “Go”, off they flew, faster than the blades on a  helicopter. When you said “Stop”, they did just that.

Delighted, you stared down your lines of code—their steady backstrokes—until each line blurred into the next. The code was immortal, the code was infinite. But you were expendable. You were alone.

“No.” You won’t accept. “That’s not fair!”

He addresses your little outburst with a smile.

“Com’on, Junebug. You can only choose one. What'll it be? Door number one or—door number one.” His smile broadens. “You know you only want _one thing_ , anyways.”

“That's not true. I respect him.”

He laughs. The reverberation fills every seat in the amphitheater. Apparently, you should’ve taken up comedy instead of codemy.

Incensed, you hiss. “Give him back!”

Each snigger is arson burning holes through your hopeful heart. “Who, Sollux? Give who back?”

“Him! _Him_!!” You feel powerless. Like some brat kicking over a tower of toys—toys of all different shapes and affections—but, whose temper can only be quelled by one. One as simple as a red rubber ball. “I want _him_ back!”

They don't stop laughing, not until they're all chuckled-out; at which point they raise their eyes to meet yours challengingly.

“Look,” the voice is corroded, tired. “I’m done playing proxy. If you have something to say to him, find him and tell him yourself.”

 

~

 

The steady drill of precipitation at your forehead forces you awake.

When you open your eyes, you’re still lying on your back in that godforsaken place, half-submerged in a pool of sub-zero proportions. It’s almost calming—the zen-like drip, the therapeutic hypothermia—until _something_ brushes up against your butt, spurring you into action. You flail at a hanging cable for leverage, but it slimes out of your grip and you fall reverseways with a splash.

Oh god. How long have you been here? Just _how_ extravagantly did you fuck things up? “Somebody, please wake me already”, the room whispers back.

One half of you is crying; the other half, resigning.

_Let this cradle be your grave. Rest._

There it is. That voice—

You wince. “I can't.”

_Shush now, buttercup. You gave it your best. That just wasn't enough._

“Please. I'll do better. Don't leave me.”

Arms reach down through the airbourne dust and swaddle you up. Their warm fingers clasp at the nape of your neck.

_No. I'll never leave you._

 

 

 

 


End file.
